I played Vault Hunters with a friend, and while all the special made content (vaults, skills and so on) feels well-made and high quality, we ultimately stopped playing. This was do to a feeling of even though you spent some 40-50 hours in a world, you don’t feel like you made any major progress. You rarely get a feeling of: “wow, this is a milestone”. Of course you level up but except from the first few level, that doesn’t feel very exciting.

Another problem with the pack is the recipes.

I usually play more classic expert modpacks, like DJ2 and E2E (which i have completed) and some gregtech modpacks, so I’m used to having difficult recipes but as you progress, you usually get the means to makes does recipes less demanding. In Vault Hunters, many modded recipes require gems found in the vault which in the beginning are pretty demanding. But the thing is, the recipes don’t really get easier.

Before you even get access to a mod, you have to unlock it, which takes a good amount of grind but you this is actually one of the few parts of the mod I felt gave a sense of: “you have progressed”. A mod like storage drawers takes quite a grind but when you finally unlock it you’re happy, but then you see the a single compacting drawer takes the same amount of grind as a netherite chestplate in vanilla. Of cause a compacting drawer shouldn’t be easy, but the cost of the recipe doesn’t go down as it require alot of vault gems.

Vault gems are only found in randomly spawned rooms in the vault. Of cause you get fortune and so on, but the amount of gems you get increases very slowly. Way slower then the demand increases, which in the end means you got to run more vaults. Of cause that’s the point of the pack, but having to grind for six hours for single drawer isn’t fun, especially as the cost of the vault increases. This leads to you having to go out and grind for resources, sometimes for pretty long time when you need a chest worth of beetroot seeds and cocoa beans, which you don’t have the means to automate, as that would require vault gems.

Vault Hunters is an absolutely amazing pack! The Progression being different from Vanilla Minecraft at first makes it start out very fresh and unique compared to other modpacks which have very “Vanilla” progressions right at the start. Unlike many other Modpacks, Vault Hunters actually excels in how well it compliments Vanilla Minecraft. All the Limitations of Vanilla have been thrown out the window. Now there’s a rewarding and satisfying way to progress and reasons to push above and beyond where Vanilla players never need to go. You’re able to unlock other mods through the progression of this pack. At the start, you can only have Vanilla Items + Vault Items (maybe a few more here and there, but its Vanilla+ if you disregard the Vaults). But through clearing Vaults, you can get the ability to unlock mods like Create, Mekanism, Thermal, Botania, and others! The progression is where I think it really shines.

The Vaults themselves are randomly generated dungeons that you go through and complete objectives and loot for treasure. This treasure can often be incredibly lucrative (It’s technically possible to get enough netherite for full gear after just running a few vaults, although the vault gear massively outclasses netherite so theres not much of a reason to). The Vaults themselves are fun, and you can break up simple or repetitive tasks by running a vault in the middle, or you can run a bunch in sequence.

I have pretty severe ADHD and although I deeply love modded minecraft, I often struggle to play through minecraft modpacks all the way through due to losing interest or there being an uninteresting “grindy” section. Vault Hunters isn’t without grind, but the grind is done through running through dungeons instead of waiting for something or strip mining and that has been able to keep my focus. I’m about 200 hours into a single player world and I’m showing no signs of stopping so far. I can only imagine its more fun on multiplayer!

This modpack is also updating, and there’s a surprising amount of complexity to the core gameplay mechanics of The Vault mod. All in All, this is a solid 5/5 stars modpack. It’s still in Alpha, so expect changes to be added that may affect gameplay, but at least currently, I love the pack and am very excited to see how this changes in the future.

I also have not experienced any issues with performance. The Game takes awhile to load, but that’s pretty typical for large modpacks so I can’t fault this pack for that. I play with shaders and get a pretty consistent 60fps. I could see performance issues on other computers though.

Playing Vault Hunters feels the most like playing a roguelite out of any mod or pack I’ve played thus far (sorry trepidation), it is a true rougelite experience, running, looting, dying, starting again, and increasing your strength through loot and your skill tree.

This is a total overhaul unlike anything else out there.

It can be a very *difficult* game, personally, I spent most of my time playing solo using the sky block mode. But I’ve also played with a group of friends and I don’t think there’s a better co-op experience than running vaults together.

Aside from the spectacular dungeon generation, the fun skill trees, and amazing custom content, the pack still maintains respect for traditional Minecraft modpacks, with many options to use the mods you’re used to while in the overworld, tho these are gated by a custom research tree.

It also improves upon many typical modded mc staples and provides QOL that I wish would become standard in other mods and modpacks, such as the morph table that lets you skin any item as another, the amazing holographic armor stands, or most of the new machines’ resource slots not having a stack limit. The custom enchanting, item crafting, and reforging are seamless, while familiar to those who have played apotheosis I actually think it’s a bit easier here… if it weren’t for the lack of resources.

On that note, the game can admittedly feel pretty grindy in the early and mid-game, I recommend messing with the extensive list of game rules particularly if you’re playing solo.

I think this is not only one of the greatest Minecraft modpacks ever made, but a phenomenal rougelite dungeon-running looting extravaganza in its own right deserving of being judged as its own game as a nearly unparalleled total overhaul.

Vault Hunters is a modpack primarilly focused around entering vaults, fighting monsters, and obtaining extraordinary loot from these randomized vaults.

There are elements of resource gathering, in that entering these vaults has a cost. The cost is a random assortment of vanilla items that can be tedious, or even difficult to obtain (wood, nether stars…). If you aren’t one for automation/resource gathering, don’t worry; the modpack is very customizable through many commands you can find in the book you start your journey with.

In terms of being an RPG: VH has it all. Customize your character through skills, talents & expertise. Mold your build with different pieces of gear, and choose that gears appearance through the transmogrification table.

With the explanation out of the way: here are the shining points of the pack.

Combat: 10/10 – the best PVE experience I’ve ever had in minecraft. Fight hordes of mobs with fireballs, thorns damage, poison clouds, glacial rain, thunder storms, or a simple swing of your sword. There are tons of viable builds available.

Resource gathering: 10/10 – this modpack made me interested in building farms like no other. The vaults give resource gathering purpose, since entering them is not free.

Content: 10/10 – You will never run out of things to do. In the vault, there are countless goals you can set for yourself; many things to find and explore, and outside of it; there are even more things to do. Cut jewels you’ve found, purchase from the black market, accept bounties, build up your farms, and so much more. I have 1,000+ hours in this pack for a reason, and not a second of it did I find myself searching for purpose.

Ends notes:

The modpack continues to update frequently, and more and more things are added. This is amazing, but also the reason performance & stability are rated as a 3. -1 because it’s a rather large pack, and not everyone can run it, and another -1, because things can change, and sometimes documentation of these changes isn’t the best.

There are many features and amazing things in this modpack you just can’t know exist if you aren’t actively watching other peoples letsplays. The quest book could be improved, as of update 12.

In the end, it remains the best pack I’ve ever played. If you liked Hack/Mine back in the good old days, or any modern RPG pack, you’ll love this. No other RPG experience in minecraft compares.

Oh: and for the skyblock enjoyers — this pack also has you covered. In world creation, you can make your playthrough a skyvault one. This world is also more performant for those with lower computer specs.